Withered Leaves Volume Ii Part 8

"But the right to ask questions lies with me. You know that lady, who is she?"

"If she chooses to envelop herself in mystery, I am the last who should like to betray it."

"You are a political agent?"

"Perhaps! At all events I am very anxious to speak to her, and I have reason to suppose that you know where she may be found."

"Then you are mistaken."

"People say they saw her here in Prussia."

"That is quite possible; but--I do not know where she is staying."

The conversation on both sides was conducted curtly and antagonistically. As the amber merchant turned to go, Blanden called after him.

"You are in possession of a secret; chance made you acquainted with that nocturnal meeting."

"Chance?" said the amber merchant, turning round, "chance? Do you know if it was chance?"

His countenance looked menacing, he clenched his hand as if convulsively.

"It is all the same," said Blanden, shortly, "I shall expect you to be silent about it."

"Who would trouble themselves about an adventure on Lago Maggiore?"

said the amber merchant, with a scoffing smile. "And yet--I know someone for whom this adventure has its price. However, we have just had a deal together, and I am amiable towards my customers, I shall betray you to no one. Farewell!"

Blanden felt as though relieved from some weight when the strangely disagreeable guest had left room and house. Although this man's face bore traces of wild good-looks, yet the decay of his features, their malign, sly expression, had something repellant about them.

Blanden was quite in the mood to seek on every side for hostile powers that interfered in his life, and this stranger possessed the power so to do, and of his ill-will there was no doubt. One thing was unquestionable, that the fairy of Lago Maggiore was at present staying in Prussia; her visit to the Ordensburg proved that. Was it by chance that her weird shadow also, which had accompanied her on Lago Maggiore, had followed her hither? What were his intentions, what was his connection with her? And what had driven her here to these remote districts?

Blanden exhausted himself in conjectures, each of which lacked any firm foundation; but it was the wandering of a mind taking counsel of itself; the picture of that seductive beauty only pa.s.sed like a veil before his spirit, because the latter was wholly filled with another, with the picture of that unfortunate girl whom he loved so fondly, and yet must repel so coldly.

The doctor's information, meanwhile, became steadily more satisfactory; Eva had almost quite recovered; might go out walking in the open air, and soon, so it was said, leave the sea-side again, and return to the capital.

Then Blanden believed that the moment had arrived for him to take leave of the girl, or to transform the lover into the friend. He had not followed Dr. Kuhl's advice to write to her; he had, indeed, seated himself before the writing-table, but he had been obliged to tear up four or five sheets of paper after the first few lines, so little did he succeed in saying what he felt, or in confiding the compulsory cause of their separation to tell-tale paper. He therefore gave up the idea of coming to an understanding with Eva by letter; he would see and speak to her. Meanwhile she must surely have learned from her mother that which he could not tell her himself. Her indisposition had, until now, prevented him seeing her; now this obstacle was removed, he might approach the convalescent.

He had made the firm resolution, appointed the day, and set out upon the road with his friend. They traversed the forest on foot; the box containing his amber treasures, which he intended to give to Eva to-day, was entrusted to some safe conveyance, and had been already delivered up at the Warnicken hotel, before the wanderers' arrival.

It was a trying walk for Blanden, but in his soul dwelled the hope of being able to hold out the hand of friends.h.i.+p to his beloved one, across that chasm which divided their love. What was left to them but painful renunciation; but is not the life of most mortals doomed to it?

Wegen was in a most cheerful mood; he sang and leaped, and described Ccilie's advantages to his friend with inexhaustible loquacity.

Olga was obliged to retire far into the background; her ponderous nature, her Turkish beauty, the sensual expression of her lips and eyes--how could she compare with that graceful figure, with the mental activity and refinement of her sister?

And when Blanden suggested that Ccilie loved Dr. Kuhl, Wegen broke out into triumphant laughter.

"No fear of that, my dear friend! She may like him for the sake of his strange ideas, but she thinks, like Homunculus, he only loves the fair s.e.x in the plural; she prefers the singular, and all girls must vote for that! I do not remember now what sort of a part Homunculus played--."

"He lives in the bottle," said Blanden, "and that is a new point of resemblance to Dr. Kuhl."

"All the same," replied Wegen, "I use that term of mockery for him now, and I do not fear him."

"He who offers his heart and hand to a girl, has an advantage over the lover who goes out in search of casual adventures. Ccilie knows that my intentions are honest; I am certainly not so intellectual as the Doctor, but a few acres of good soil are worth more than a whole _orbis pictus_ of genius that floats up aloft in the air--girls are more practical than we think."

"You may be right," replied Blanden, "many only make use of the throbs of their hearts to enable them to learn addition; but there are many exceptions, brilliant exceptions: there are girlish hearts which live and die in their love."

With this last melancholy turn the conversation was interrupted for some time.

Blanden thought of his Eva, and of the pain of seeing her again, and Wegen would not disturb his friend in such gloomy dreams.

Blanden's heart beat violently when the roof of the homely inn gleamed forth beneath the trees.

How often had he been there lately; but only sorrow for the dangerously sick girl then had filled his mind; to-day it was the anxious antic.i.p.ation of a half longed-for, half-dreaded meeting that caused his spirit to be in such a state of vacillation.

In the hope of encountering her on the forest paths, in the Wolfs-schlucht, or upon the Fuchs-spitze, he wandered along the shaded walks, but his hopes had been in vain.

Arrived at the summit, he directed his glance towards the little fisherman's-cottage; the attic window, usually covered with curtains, stood open, and the afternoon sun streamed in with all its force. Eva had left the sick room.

All around was silence, all seemed to be dead! What should he do? To seek the Regierungsrthin, and ask her about her daughter, was to him the most unwelcome course, because in that lady's eyes he must appear like a criminal, and he would not expose himself to her reproachful glance.

It seemed best to contrive to get a little note conveyed to the daughter's hands, and to invite her to a walk to the Fuchs-spitze; half-witted Ktchen might serve as an unsuspected messenger.

Thus the two friends sat in undecided consultation. The more slanting rays of the sun fell through the tops of the oaks. Alternating in light and shade, the ocean waves played in manifold colours; it was as though a broken rainbow had sunk down into them; here they appeared light green, there deep blue, alternating with violet and reddish tints. A black bank of clouds hung in the west, swallowing up the setting sun more and more, but yonder, where lighter fleecy clouds broke away in smaller portions, it enframed the orb of day in a glowing triumphal portal that cast its radiant reflection into the billows.

The sunset was premature, and a sensation of evil portent lay over land and sea. The surf broke more impetuously down below, it was the last echo of a distant storm that beneath the heavy clouds of night winged its flight seawards.

How strange was the chattering of the waves upon the sh.o.r.e, and their varied dance. The one dashes upward like a spring of life in vernal green, while the next, heavy as a blue-black monster of the night, rushes over it, and in the whirling foam the lights of the evening sky are blended in a nosegay of tints, which the one wave offers to the other, and which the recipient scatters ruthlessly in the breakers which expire upon the sand of the sh.o.r.e.

There, see--a boat leaves the strand, and floats over the foam in the surf.

Two girls sit within it; Blanden has recognised Eva.

How can she, who has barely recovered from a fever, venture out on the evening tide?

And how she sits there, pale, deadly pale, her hands folded, staring into the waves.

Then the sun suddenly breaks through the clouds once more, and sheds a bright rosy radiance upon her features.

Ave Maria! She resembles the Virgin in the picture, gliding in a boat over the silent mountain lake, and while the bells are pealing in the churches on the coast, folds her hands.

But here no bells are ringing--here no Ave Maria is sounded--half-witted Ktchen rows them out to sea.

Does she not perceive the stormy clouds on the horizon?

But the voice from the heights above can still reach the women sailors, and with all his might Blanden cries--

"Eva!" and, in a warning tone, he calls it once again.